144 GREEK LANGUAGE 



some extent the manifold variety of the earlier language; but that 

 restriction too gave regularity and normality, which are apt to be 

 absent in languages which, like Latin, live for centuries without the 

 restraining and corrective influence of literary art, and thus degener- 

 ate into anomaly and irregularity. Some part, too, of the formal 

 riches of Greek were abandoned by the action of the law of least 

 effort and by the conscious operation of the intellect. 



Allusion can be made to only a few points of interest. The multi- 

 plicity of the so-called irregular verbs proceeds from a nice sense 

 of distinction between various kinds of action (' point '-action, con- 

 tinuative, terminative, perfective, etc.), which is due to the difference 

 of the formative elements and to the meaning of the several roots 

 which combine into a system. Lucidity marks the formation of 

 derivative words, especially the compound abstracts, which, as a 

 rule, show at once their connection 'with the primitives; whereas in 

 English and the "dead Romance languages," as Fichte called them 

 in contrast to German, abstract words are frequently borrowed and 

 thus stand in no living relation with common speech. 



Greek, as German, shows more color in making neuters of its di- 

 minutives, whereas in Latin difference in size is not marked by differ- 

 ence in gender. So, too, in other forms: Latin contents itself with 

 amans for <iAwv, <iAovo-a, <iAow. Many words form plurals that are 

 impossible in the modern languages: in Greek such plurals often 

 manifest the operation of an intellectual activity, in Latin they 

 usually display strength of feeling. 



But the originality of the language is nowhere more patent ex- 

 ternally than in its ability to form compounds. Here appears the 

 flexibility of the Greek mind, its fertility of resource, its innate artis- 

 tic capacity, its power of welding with pregnant force the various 

 characteristics of an object; here the distinctive virtues of individual- 

 ity have free room to make themselves felt. Take, for example, such 

 compounds as e^eAev^epooro/ie'to, /caTao-Tpto-/i.ds, TAeo//.?;i os, and the elas- 

 tic avroxfip- In lucidity and precision Greek may vie with Sanskrit, 

 but its sense of proportion rejects the sesquipedalia verba of that 

 tongue. 1 In plasticity Greek has a possible rival in German alone. 2 



1 Examples of long words are kiroyvuffinaxfiffamfs. oTjui;Aio<7ti\\KT<87y. 



a Aristophanes may for the moment rear towering compounds, but normal 

 Greek rarely can vie with German herein. German, too, excels in the construction 

 of such words as " Anundfursichsein"; and outdoes even itself in " Auchnichtsein- 

 undauchandersseinkonnen." English reaches its maximum in " transubstantiation- 

 ableness" and " proantitransubstantiationist." Grimm's Worterbuch gives 617 

 words compounded with " kunst" and almost as many with " krieg" and " hand." 

 It should be observed that, though German is like Greek as regards the freedom with 

 which it forms compounds, the quality of German compounds is in many respects 

 different from that of Greek, and especially as regards sensuous epithets. The 

 influence of Greek in the eighteenth century is seen in the increased frequence of 

 such compounds as " neidgetroffen " (Goethe), " donnergesplittert " (Klopstock). 

 Compounds with the past participle are rare in O. H. G. and M. H. G. German 

 admits also the present participle, as in " liebegliihendes Herz" (Korner) and 

 " vdlkerwimmelnde Stadt" (Schiller). 



